Towards Generic Business Models of Intermediaries in Data Collaboratives

Abstract

Data has become a core asset, as well as a “management fashion”, of our time. It brings about unprecedented opportunities for data-driven decision making and innovation in various spheres of public life. This concerns data held by governments, as well as companies, academic institutions, non-profits, and citizens. In our study we investigate a novel form of cross-sector partnership called Data Collaborative, and namely the business models employed by intermediaries in data collaboratives. Based on an analysis of six cases, we derived four generic business models based on the level of openness and added value of the data: Data Gatekeeper model, One-stop-shop model, Information-as-a-service model, and Data Controls model. Our study contributes to the literature on data partnerships and on intermediation and information sharing more broadly.